Final Fantasy IV Advance Diary, Week 6

Kicking ass across three worlds!

No pic? No problem! (sorry for laziness/forgetfulness)

DAY 19 (1/26/15. PLAYTIME: 14:55 TO 15:44) pt. 1

    Another day spent mostly grinding the Lunar Path on the Moon. Got everyone to either level 40 or 39. After doing this for almost 40 minutes, I finally decided to press on. I went through a few more Lunar Paths and emerged at the Crystal Palace. It's here that I met a strange old man, with an even stranger name (Fusoya). He explains that Cecil is a descendant of a Lunarian (people who live on the Moon). The voice Cecil heard at Mt. Ordeals, so long ago, was that of his father. Fusoya tells him he has the power to defeat Golbez. He says we now must rush back to the Tower of Babel. Finally, the old man joins the party!
    Other than this, I didn't do a whole lot more. I've been doing a lot more grinding lately (it seems), so I apologize if these posts aren't quite as meaty as they usually are. It's all part of the master plan, of course!

• I have so far narrowed down my three favorite songs in this game: the boss battle music, the normal airship music, and the overworld Moon music. All are amazing and very catchy. Otherwise, the music overall is good, but not wholly memorable

 
    I played today for quite a bit. I played for close to an hour on my lunch break, like normal, but I then played for about 90 minutes more after when I was home. I'm gonna separate this day 19 post into two smaller, more digestible parts!

DAY 19 (1/26/15. PLAYTIME: 15:45 TO 17:22) pt. 2

    Went back to Earth (to go to the Tower of Babel), and got a nice "cutscene" of the Giant of Babel waking up. The Dwarf King comes with his tanks, and Cid comes with his airships, all to fight this giant beast. We are also treated to nice shots of several characters from the game's past. Hey, guess who isn't dead? Yang! So, what exactly happened to him in that cannon room is anyone's guess, I feel that the writer's weren't too clear with that. At any rate, at least he's alive!
    Oh yeah,  Porom and Palom are alive. Yaay. Also Edward makes an appearance. So, instead of this game CONSTANTLY killing main characters, like I had thought, they actually don't kill ANYONE! I think the only REALLY dead character is Tellah, yet I can't even be 100% confident about that (even though I watched him die. I watched P & P turn themselves to stone, but hey, what the hell!). Anyway, after this you enter the Giant. You make your way down to his core, and here you fight the toughest boss(es) of the game, by far. After this, you fight a MUCH easier boss. After THIS Golbez shows up. Fusoya makes him remember who he is. Turns out, he's Cecil's brother! Woah! And he was being controlled, this whole time, by something (or someone) called Zemus. Golbez and Fusoya go to the Moon to confront Zemus. So, Golbez is really a great guy, but since he has Lunarian blood, he's more easily controllable? Sure, Final Fantasy IV, whatever you say.
    Speaking of people who are easily controllable, Kain shows up and joins again! He says if he betrays the party again, you can kill him. Fair enough. So now the party is Cecil, Kain, Edge, Rosa, and Rydia. Not too shabby. I shut it off shortly after these boss battles. Let's get down to brass taxes!

• While I still feel like it's pretty interesting, the story of this game is definitely not as strong as I felt it was at the beginning. There was a lot of intrigue about why the king was acting such a fool, and why did Golbez want all the Crystals? But, now Golbez is good (I guess?), and a new, even more evil person/entity is mentioned, like 85% through the game? And characters come back even though they clearly should be dead? Plus, you go to the Moon (which I think is cool actually). It's just getting a little silly. 
• Despite that, I still find this game IMMENSELY ENTERTAINING and I am just absolutely loving it. 
• I kind of hope Golbez joins the party to be a playable character. That would be awesome!

BOSS:

ELEMENTAL LORD:

Which one doesn't belong?

    Holy shit. BY FAR the toughest fight in the game. It's essentially a gauntlet where you have to fight all four newly resurrected Elemental lords, back to back to back to back. [note: I took pictures of three of the Lords, but I neglected to take a picture of Cagnazzo. Instead of posting four individual pics of the Lords, I just put them in this neat collage up there. Finally, I just recycled the picture of Cagnazzo from the first fight. Deal with it] The order goes: Scarmiglione, Rubicante, Cagnazzo, and Barbericcia. Basic strategy throughout: Cecil and Edge attack, Fusoya uses Quake (or heals, or uses items when mp is low), Rosa obviously provides INCEDIBLY VALUABLE healing support, with group Curajas thrown around like play money. Rydia spams Titan. That's basically what I did the whole time. Two notes, Edge's Blitz heals (at least Scarmiglione. I was too scared to try them after that) a little bit. I tried Holy (Fusoya) on Scarmiglione. DON'T! It healed him in excess of 8,000 HP!


CPU & ATTACK AND DEFENSE NODE:

Eh, I have nothing to say for this boring boss

    After the very tough Elemental Lord fight, you fight this very easy battle. You go into the heart of the Giant, and fight this CPU, and it's Attack and Defense Nodes. This big thing controls the Giant. It looks pretty boring, and well, it is pretty boring. Firstly, the Attack Node, if you couldn't guess, attacks. The Defense Node heals the CPU (as seen in the picture above) with 3,000 HP. The first order of business was to destroy it. It doesn't have much health, so it's pretty easy. After this, I attacked the Attack Node. Once both the Nodes were destroyed, I unleashed everything I had at the CPU. After a while, the CPU restores the two Nodes, so they had to be destroyed again. There's not much strategy here, it's all about just crushing those Nodes and unleashing hell on that CPU.

---------------------------------------------------------

DAY 20 (1/28/15. PLAYTIME: 17:23 TO 18:05)

    Well, picked up where I last left off (oddly enough), just chilling on the moon. I went to the small cave that has weird Moon people (are THESE the Lunarians?) to stock up on Hi-potions, Phoenix Downs, and a few Ethers. Then, as I was flying to find that Crystal Palace again, I found a very conspicuous-looking cave. I entered.
    It's the Cave of Bahamut. I don't know much about it, besides (and this can be deducted from the very name of the cave) the fact that I would assume Rydia can get the Bahamut summon here. I spent the remainder of my lunch break just working my way through this area. It's not TOO bad, except there are three instances of mandatory battle against a very tough enemy in the Behemoth. Firstly, magic does NOTHING against him, so Rydia is BEYOND useless. But he's not officially a boss, so I don't feel like getting into the battles. It boils down to a very neglected (by me) spell, Blink, which works wonders.
    After every battle with the Behemoths, I ran all the way out of the cave (not a super big cave, luckily) to use a Tent and to save. It wasn't until after I beat the third one that I realized I could use the damn Teleport spell to get out of the dungeon. I saved and shut it off right before what I assume is the battle with Bahamut. I'm not expecting it to be easy or short, so I'll need some time. That will hopefully be my next day's post!

• I find the idea that Bahamut lives deep underground in a cave in the Moon incredibly awesome. It adds such depth to the mythos of the creature. Fucking sweet (*thumbs up*)
• I know there are a few more optional areas, and I was debating if I should use a guide to find them. I really wanna keep this as blind a first playthrough as I can, so I think I'm going to search for them myself. If I really can't find them, I'm going to go ahead and finish the game first, create another save, and THEN use a guide to complete the side quests.

BOSS:

    NONE!

---------------------------------------------------------

 

DAY 21 (1/29/15. PLAYTIME: 18:06 TO 18:56)

    Got to what I had correctly guessed as being the end of the Bahamut Cave, and there's some asshole there (Summoner God maybe?) that says essentially I haven't been blessed by the King Summoner, so, that's that. I can't do anything more here until I talk to this King Summoner. Damn. Well, I think my next task is to find the Land of the Summoners. I know they've mentioned it in-game a few times, and I think I remember my friend Max saying it was in the Underworld.
    So, I went to the Underworld and found a cave entrance I'd never used before. It's something called the Sylvan Cave. It's full of HP-draining pools of something (poison or ooze). That's where my brief morning session ended.
    Luckily, on my lunch break, I picked up where I had last saved, at the Sylvan Cave. After talking with Max again (who is a veritable Final Fantasy IV encyclopedia), I decided it wasn't worth getting through this cave. I really wanted to find this damn Land of the Summoners. I NEEDED BAHAMUT!
    After flying for a few minutes in the Underworld, I found a small island with a cave on it. Sure enough, this was the Cave of Summons. I made my way through this Cave, and got to a small town at the bottom. Here was the King and Queen of the Summoners. I talked to them, and fought one easy boss battle, before I saved. I should be fighting a second boss battle immediately upon starting the game back up.

• As I've said a few times, I've tried VERY hard not to look at any online walkthroughs. With maybe two small exceptions, I've been very good at just figuring everything out on my own (although it's not a tough game to figure). However, in talking with my friend Max (who I've referenced several times already), I've learned quite a lot about the game. He's helped me (inadvertently really. I've never just asked him for help) with lots of stuff. Just wanted to get that out there. 

BOSS:

ASURA:

U mad bro?

    Very easy. Casted Reflect on her, and that made her Curaga she always uses worthless (she also casts Protect, and bizarrely, Life on herself. By the end of the battle, I think my entire party had Protect on due to her own Protects being Reflected. I love it) Otherwise, Rydia spammed Titan, Kain Jumped, and everyone else just attacked. Very easy battle. You receive the Asura summon as a reward.

---------------------------------------------------------

DAY 22 (1/30/15. PLAYTIME: 18:57 TO 19:36)

    After I defeated Asura yesterday, I saved it. Immediately today I fought the King of the Summoners, Leviathan. After I handily whooped his candy ass, I went and delivered a Rat Tail (that I found in the Cave of Summons) to a small, weird guy at a small, weird place called Adamant Grotto. I got Adamantite in return. This, I brought to a small smithy in the Underworld, and I got Excalibur! Pretty dope (note: I used a walkthrough for the very last part. So sue me).
    After this little excursion, there's only one thing left to do before starting the endgame: go get that Bahamut. To the Moon!
    Went through the Cave and got to Bahamut. After a fairly easy (although tricky) battle against the God of the Summons, I now own his ass. After this short fight, I left the cave, Cottage'd up, and made my way to the front of the Crystal Palace. Is this where the end starts? We shall see, we shall see...

• As the end draws near, I can't help but feel a deep sadness. This game has been fairly amazing, and I'm pretty sad to see it come to an end.
• Not sure what else to say. I've said almost everything there is to say about the game in the last six weeks. All I do know, though, is I should be in for lots of boss battles to end the game. I'm chomping at the bit

    

BOSS:

LEVIATHAN:

Derp-level: EXTREME

    Unbelievably, much easier than Asura. Leviathan is slow and barely attacks. I think his only attack is Tidal Wave, which hits everyone, but for minimal damage. Otherwise, he might attack with a physical attack, but it doesn't do much. I had Kain Jump, Cecil attack, Edge use his Blitz ninjitsu (until he ran out of MP, then he attacked normally), Rydia spam Ramuh, and Rosa either group-heal or even cast Haste on people! Using this configuration, I took down Leviathan with ease. Now I can use him as a summon, and now I can go back to the Moon and (presumably) fight Bahamut now!


BAHAMUT:

I was expecting him to be a little bigger, honestly

    I feel a little dirty about this one. It has one trick to it, and if you don't learn it (or know it before hand), this battle would basically be impossible unless you were level 80+. Max (who has supplied me with a wealth of information about the game) had mentioned something about using Reflect in this battle. Which is very odd, considering Bahamut has one attack, and he counts down to it. That attack, of course, is Mega Flare. It does 5,000+ damage to all party members. And that's where Reflect comes in. Unfortunately, I only used Reflect on Rosa first, so he wiped out the other four members of my party with his first Mega Flare. But, besides just shielding Rosa from the damage, the spell was actually reflected back at Bahamas (go figure, huh?), which did 5,000+ damage per time. After the first Mega Flare, he curls up again and starts another countdown (starting at 5). I revived Kain, but couldn't put a Reflect on him. Luckily, he Jumped during the second Mega Flare, so he didn't take damage. After that, I DID put Reflect on Kain, and I also revived Rydia and Reflected her. Edge and Cecil stayed dead for the remainder of the battle. That's okay, because with Kain's Jump, Rydia's Leviathan summon, and the Reflected Mega Flare, Bahamut went down easily. Now I have his services. Time to start this endgame!


    Thanks for reading everyone! Next week's installment might be the final one (get it? Final one? Final Fantasy?). Stay tuned!